Unraveling Normality: Snow Melt

 It used to be cold.

The white blanket on the land gives the idea that it still is.

Beneath bare feet. As far as the eye can see. Even the flower resting in their skull, growing from nutrients of the mind, had completely shrunken and withered. Become completely frosted over.

So why do they feel none of it?

How long has it been snowing?

Sparkling crystals everfalling. 

 

It’s beautiful, really. No matter how many times this scene may or may not replay, the weather is a constant fascination. What the sky allows itself to release may always be a mystery here. Why, now, does it dispense frozen powder and not blazing bolts of light? Why not always? What causes it to stop, to change? Can it make anything else as painless and fascinating as now?

 

With an outstretched hand, flakes caught on dark scales. Or at least, they might’ve. They can’t glance down to check, but it must’ve happened. There is no warmth. There is no burn.

Their eye sluggishly blinks. Once. 

 

Twice.

All there is is white.

Where are they looking?

How long have I been standing here?

There’s a storm. In their head, maybe. Fuzzy crackling dances through their skull, the beat unmusical. Discordance is the rhythmn they dance to, yet even this was too erratic.

 

Vision blurs and warps. The world appears to be melting together, creating color from the hueless. But it still isn't warm. 

Maybe that's why nothing has been attracted here.

They don’t give heat either.

 

Teuvo sluggishly closes their eye. The sickness of being was getting too strong. 

 

Balance became more uneven the further they stayed. It should be so easy to just fall, collapse on the ground. How great they wish their knees, paled and cracked, could touch the snow.

 Maybe it'd provide a sense of relief. A feeling unknown.

 

 

It’s so hard to think as everything becomes one.

Why… am I still here?

When will this blizzard end.

For eons, they stood.

For eons, the frozen rain kept them there.

I… can’t do it.

They blink.

 

Once.

 

Twice.

Nothing, in all this time, had changed.

 

I don’t want to be here any longer.

To want, was something new.

 

Let me disappear..

So the ground began to crack.

 

..without a trace.

 

Hot red fissure lines opened in sight still swirling together. The color itself provided a sense of dread, yet drew them forward.

Somehow, they moved forward.

 

And jumped into the darkness.

Finally, this could cease to be.

 

 

-

 

 

How long have I been here?

Through the dreaded emptiness, there is only one thing to know.

 

Shame.

I’m.. ashamed.

Why would they ask for anything different? 

 

Everything to be lost falls down here. Even this voice claimed as theirs was fading.

Memories of the snow and its welcoming numbness included.

 

Why would they not want an easy time? Easier than now, where there is nothing.

 

My resentment building up inside hurts.

 

Why do I not want myself?

Not even darkness wrapped around them in mock comfort.

For eons, they were devoid of everything.

Please..

 

Give me back the snow and numbness so I know I’m alive.

That I can feel.

That I’m real and I’m alive and I can feel the cold break me down.

 

Make me nauseous so I know that I can be.

Freeze my bones.

 

Turn me blue.

 

But put me back where I know it’s real.

I want to be real.

I don’t want to be dead.

-

A gust of freezing wind rouses all senses, muscles tightening in defense. Their skin all over stung from frost’s touch. It was.. confusing. Exhilarating. After a few seconds, they muster the courage to open their reddened eye. A thin layer of snow covered their supine body. 

 

Had they.. drifted to sleep?

 

Muscles were no longer immobile. Fingers popped as they bent and extended, brushing their chest clean. Wings weren’t crushed underneath their light frame, but did ache as they rose to sit. The barren land they had seen previously was right in front of, and all around them. Snow was still floating down, as bright and weightless as before. A beat, nearly nonexistent before, pounded holed ears.

 

Had they been in a dream?

Am I now?

 

Able to look down, the snow was only a few feathers high.

A dark hand reached out, curling to meet the snow. It had weight. Texture. Temperature. Liquid ran between the fingers they pressed together, melting what had previously been unchangeable. Undoable. In a hurry, they stood. It crunched beneath a few steps.

They fell back, dizzy, with arms outstretched. Teuvo couldn’t help but smile, thin lips blue. Eye dilated. If there was any energy left in their form, they’d laugh. Laugh for as long as they could. Until someone found them. Instead, their chest creaked with each breath they sucked in.

 

May I melt like the snow someday.